BEHAVIOR AND THE SKIN

Abstract

Skinner (1938) once defined behavior as a proper subset of organismic activities—those that involve commerce with the outside world. Here I reexamine and reformulate Skinner’s definition to make the underlying conceptual framework more explicit. This framework turns out to be partly morphological and to rely on biological concepts of organism and adaptation. I propose a reformulation of Skinner’s definition along these lines, and I underscore the importance of the skin, not only in the life of an organism, but in the very definition of its behavior. Keywords: definition, behavior, environment, organism, boundary.